


Gifts

by Mertiya



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Billy and Teddy are both kind of idiots, First Kiss, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, In which I shamelessly use my own headcanons about Billy's powerset, M/M, Pre-Canon, Trans Male Character, and a little angst, playing with genderswap tropes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 15:24:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11535012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Billy Kaplan wakes up to a surprise one morning--maybe his powers aren't just lightning-based after all?





	Gifts

Billy woke up feeling weirdly refreshed. Considering he’d cried himself to sleep the night before, he hadn’t been expecting to feel too amazing, especially since he was probably PMSing and liable to start his period within the next day or two, which was Grade A Suck, in his opinion. He checked his sheets, which at least turned out not to be a murder scene, so that was a good sign.

            Sleepily, he headed into the bathroom and flipped on the light switch. His face was itching some, which might mean more acne—oh, _joy_. With a sigh, he grabbed his washcloth and rinsed his face before reaching for his toothbrush.

            Something was different. He hadn’t had a cup of coffee, so it was hard for him to put a finger on what it was, but there was definitely _something_ different. Yawning, he squinted into the mirror. Weird, his chin looked almost fuzzy. But he wasn’t even on T yet, and not likely to be for a few years if he couldn’t even manage to come out to his parents, who were, seriously, the most harmless, accepting people in the world. Except—Billy frowned and ran his hands down his front. He’d managed to get a binder by ordering it from a pretty discreet online source, but he didn’t wear it to sleep in, since that wasn’t good for your breathing, and, again, there was the potential concern of Mom and Dad noticing. So how come his chest was so flat?

            “No way,” Billy said out loud, and his voice came out pitched half-a-tone lower than it usually sounded. “But I have _lightning_ magic, I don’t—” He swallowed. He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. With trembling hands, he stripped off the Thor t-shirt he always wore to bed and ran his hands down a smooth, skinny chest. “No way,” he whispered again, and then he pulled down the boxers covering his skinny thighs and actually squealed. “Oh my _god_! I have a _dick_!”

~

            For the entire day, Billy oscillated wildly between ecstatic and fucking terrified. He _felt_ right, he _looked_ right, and after desperately digging out the razor he used to use to shave his legs and armpits, he managed to scrape off the fuzz on his chin. His face looked different, but it didn’t look different enough that he thought anyone would actually notice. Firstly because they’d have to look at him instead of looking through him and secondly because it was such an _insane_ thing to happen that no one would ever, _ever_ believe it. No one was going to come to the conclusion that “that weird Kaplan girl (ugh) grew a dick last night and is really excited about it!”

            But he wasn’t a girl and now he had goddamn proof of it, even if he couldn’t exactly show it to anyone. And that was fantastic! Less fantastic was the fear of how the other Young Avengers would take it, because it seemed really likely that Billy wasn’t just a lightning-user after all, unless they’d skipped some really crazy shit in Earth Science. And—there was Teddy.

            Teddy, who’d been so great about it when Billy came out to him, who’d never fucked up Billy’s pronouns, not even once. Who’d given him the most breathtaking smile and said that he wished they could swap powers for just a little while so that Billy could feel more at home in his own skin. Who, Billy had to admit, he kind of sort of definitely had a crush on, and he thought Teddy might feel the same way, but how would this change things? In principal, it shouldn’t change anything, but Billy couldn’t stop worrying about various different ways Teddy might react. He could be weirded out, or it might turn out that he was straight and he’d only been interested in Billy because Billy still _looked_ enough like a girl. Maybe that was why he’d never made a move. Because Teddy was definitely one of the nicest people Billy knew, and if he was attracted to women, Billy was pretty sure he’d never put the moves on him, because he respected Billy’s identity too much for that.

            And, yeah, that wasn’t the worst thing in the world, definitely not. But it was such a depressing thought—having somebody attracted to you but attracted to you in a way you didn’t want to be. That would _suck_.

            He spent his lunch hour trying to figure out how this had happened, in the hopes of being able to report something more concrete to Nate and the others than, “my tits vanished overnight, I’m overjoyed, none of this makes any sense.” What had happened the night before? He’d wrestled with his precalc homework, mostly finished it, read one of his Thor comics, and then gotten hit with a wave of dysphoria. And he’d gone to bed and cried. That was it. Wasn’t it?

            It wasn’t until he was trudging out of school that he remembered the last thing. _I am a boy_ , he’d said, when he was crying, when he was curled up in bed. _I am. I am a boy. I am a_ boy _._ And he’d gone to sleep whispering it.

            Just like the day he’d said, _I want to stop Kesler_.

            Maybe his habit of verbalizing the spell he was about to cast wasn’t just a habit…Billy swallowed as his entire world seemed to shake on its axis. If he wasn’t just a lightning mage—what _was_ he?

            _Freak_ , whispered a voice in the back of his mind, and he shivered, pushing the thought to the side. Maybe the rest of the Young Avengers would have some ideas.

~

            “All right, before we go home for the night, does anyone have any news?” Iron Lad asked them, the way he always did, although it didn’t look as if he was going to wait for an answer, and he probably meant news about Kang the Conqueror. But Billy hadn’t managed to get anything out until now, and this was basically the perfect opportunity. And if he didn’t say anything now, he didn’t know if he’d ever manage to get it out.

            “So…” he said slowly. “You know how we thought I had lightning powers?”

            “Yes, and you’ve been doing a remarkably good job at learning to control— _thought_?”

            “Um.” Billy looked nervously from Iron Lad to Patriot to—Hulkling. “Um. So. I—” He couldn’t figure out how to say it. “Last night, I—you know how I told you I, um, don’t like the way I look?”

            “Oh, spit it out,” Patriot said, although he sounded more impatient than unkind.

            But Billy couldn’t. “Look. Last night I went to bed—the way I usually do—and this morning I woke up and—” He took a deep breath, reached down and grabbed the hem of his t-shirt and hoody, yanking them up and over his head. He had to fight the absurd urge to cross his arms over his chest. “I was saying last night before I went to sleep that I—that I was a boy, y’know, because I was feeling kind of shitty, and—and—” Fuck. There were tears prickling at the backs of his eyes. That was stupid.

            A soft hand was laid on his shoulder, and he glanced to the side to see that Teddy was regarding him with a kind of wonder in his round blue eyes. Billy flushed to the roots of his hair.

            “That’s definitely something we’ll need to test,” Iron Lad agreed, and the matter-of-fact way he said it soothed part of the terror that had been gnawing at Billy’s innards all day. Patriot’s eyebrows went up, but all he said was, “Huh. Well. Congrats, man.”

            “Uh, thanks. I, uh, I guess I better put my shirt back on, huh.”

            “Here.” Teddy handed it back to him. “Um. You look good, Billy.”

            Billy’s cheeks chose that moment to go from slightly warm to approximately the temperature of the surface of the sun. “Uh, um, th-thanks,” he stammered, attempting to yank his shirt back on and getting tangled in it. “I guess, uh, we can talk more about it at our next training session?”

            “Good plan,” Iron Lad told him briskly. “Maybe if we can figure out the extent of your powers, we can figure out why you were listed on the Avengers Failsafe.”

            Billy tried to nod through the all-encompassing layers of shirt. It didn’t work terribly well. “Argh,” he groaned. “Can someone—”

            A pair of gentle hands took the hem of his shirt and tugged it down carefully. “You good?” Teddy asked.

            “Yeah, I th—” Billy’s voice was arrested as he finally managed to get the offending article of clothing straightened out and found himself staring straight into Teddy’s eyes. Apparently Teddy hadn’t been pulling from behind the way he’d assumed. Billy stared, trying to move his limbs, trying to do anything other than just let Teddy’s warm breath ghost across his mouth. And Teddy wasn’t moving away either, but—

            It was a fucking perfect moment, so of course Billy’s mouth opened and said exactly the thing most guaranteed to screw it all up. “Look—I’m flattered, Teddy, but, uh, if you weren’t attracted to me before—I don’t know if—” _Yes, you do!_ screamed a voice in the back of his head. _You know exactly what you want! You want to make out with his perfect face, right now!_ His brain couldn’t even use the _you’re just a straight girl faking it_ anymore, but somehow he was still—afraid. “I mean. What if it’s temporary? I don’t really know how I did it, and—and—I’d rather not have you than just lose you again because, uh, my breasts came back.” Which, of course, was the point at which he realized that Teddy hadn’t said anything, so Billy had just assumed that he was thinking about kissing Billy the way Billy had been thinking about kissing him, and he might’ve just opened his mouth and shoved his foot so far down his throat he was kicking himself in the kidneys. “I mean, um.”

            Teddy went red, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. “Billy, I’ve always been attracted to you,” he said, and Billy’s train of thought derailed with a screeching crash of phantom brakes.

            “You…have?”

            “I, uh, didn’t know if you wanted anyone to be attracted to you? I knew you had issues with your body, and I didn’t want to complicate things by making you think about them too hard, I guess. But—maybe I accidentally complicated shit anyway?”

            “ _Fuck_ me,” Billy said incredulously, and Teddy got a mischievous look on his face.

            “Maybe I should kiss you first,” he suggested, and Billy flailed his arms in the air.

            “Kill me now,” he moaned.

            “Your instructions are getting worse,” Teddy informed him, and Billy opened his mouth, having absolutely no idea what he was going to say this time, but before he could drive his foot further into his abdominal cavity, Teddy cupped his hand around Billy’s cheek, bent down, and pressed their lips together. Billy froze in shock, and then he had his arms wrapped around Teddy’s shoulders, and he was kissing him back.

            “Get a room, you two,” Patriot sighed.

            Billy flipped him off over Teddy’s shoulder as he brushed gingerly at Teddy’s mouth with his tongue. The screaming little voice in the back of his mind that had consistently insisted that he had definitely fucked something up lately had finally gone quiet.

            After a long moment, Teddy pulled back, but his hands were still resting on Billy’s waist. “So, um,” he said, awkwardly.

            “D’you want to get something to eat together? Tonight?” Billy asked him eagerly, and Teddy’s face broke into a wide smile.

            “I’d love to.”

            “Fuck yes!” Billy leaned forward into Teddy’s embrace, then had to lean up and kiss him again, on the cheek this time. “This is the best damn day of my life,” Billy told him, and Teddy’s smile got, if possible, even wider.

            “I’m glad,” he said, and he squeezed Billy tighter.

           

 

           

**Author's Note:**

> look i just HAVE A LOT OF FEELS about trans billy kaplan okay


End file.
